A GROWING number of climate scientists, among them some of the most renowned names in the field, are sounding the alarm about the destructive impacts of climate change — not the effects of a rapidly deteriorating environment itself but the dangerous social and political upheaval that it is likely to cause, and is even now beginning to spread. We have previously stressed the need to improve the public messaging on climate change, and it is becoming increasingly clear that need must be taken seriously, and acted upon quickly by climate scientists and policymakers alike.
In an interview at the end of January for “Inside Climate News,” Reinhard Steurer, a climate researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, explained the fundamental problem with the oft-cited “1.5 degrees Celsius” benchmark for climate change action. It is generally accepted now by climatologists that the world probably surpassed that target, which represents the amount the global average temperature has increased from the pre-industrial period, sometime last year; by how much is still a matter of debate, with different analyses calculating a range between about 1.54 C and 1.7 C.
That does not really matter, Steurer suggests, because “[i]t’s language nobody really understands, unfortunately, outside of science.” He said: “You always have to explain that 1.5 means a climate we can adapt to and manage the consequences, 2 degrees of heating is really dangerous, and 3 means collapse of civilization.”
Along with that, “The real danger is that there are so many other crises around us that there is no effort left for the climate crisis,” he said. “We will find all kinds of reasons not to put more effort into climate protection because we are overburdened with other things like inflation and wars all around us.”
Steurer laments that public climate information has focused on the 1.5 C target, a view that is echoed by other climate luminaries such as James Hansen and Peter Kalmus. The outcome of the recent COP28 climate summit, which objectively failed to initiate any substantial action to combat anthropogenic warming but was characterized as a “success” that “kept the 1.5 C goal alive, is cited as an example of what the climate message has become: performative politics that suggest something is being done when it really isn’t so that when the inevitable harsh effects of a heating world arrive, all the policy and action (or lack thereof) that emerges from that message will be thoroughly discredited.
Apart from encouraging procrastination on climate mitigation and adaptation, the ambiguity of the 1.5 C peg has also enabled a great deal of climate disinformation. Part of that is from self-interest on the part of economic sectors that stand to lose if real climate action is taken, and part of that, social scientists say, is the natural tendency of most people to meet potential crises with denial, as that is the easiest answer to reach for, at least at first. In the scientists’ view, the current rise of right-wing populism in the US, in Europe, and in other places like Argentina, which recently elected a right-wing extremist as president, is a reflection of that.
As climate effects become more extreme and more undeniable, the scientists fear they will lead to extreme reactions on both sides. On the one hand, as Peter Kalmus explained in the same article, the increasingly desperate environmental situation and rising authoritarianism will drive climate activists to increasingly radical action, something we have already begun to see in the past couple of years. There will naturally be an increasingly harsh public and government backlash against that, further discrediting the climate message and encouraging governments, especially those with a populist bent, to move toward an “armed lifeboat” outlook toward the rest of the world — secure the borders, secure one’s own sources of food and energy, and keep out “the rest of them.”
All of this amounts to a very grim prognosis indeed, but if there is any hope of salvaging the situation and preventing the ultimate collapse of civilization, it lies in how the message is presented. The entire approach now must be changed, and the climate information problem and possible solutions, even if they are only partial ones, recast in simpler, more relatable terms that address real-world social and economic worries.